The Conservatives will not hold a referendum on the EU treaty if they win a general election, shadow foreign secretary William Hague has announced.

Mr Hague said ratification of the treaty by the Czechs - the last EU country to do so - meant the Tory campaign for a referendum "ends today".

He said Tory leader David Cameron would set out details of a new policy on Europe on Wednesday.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus has signed the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the final step in the charter's ratification.

The treaty was drawn up to streamline decision-making in the EU, and is a watered-down version of a draft EU constitution rejected four years ago.

Among its measures, it creates a European Council president and alters the way member states vote.

The treaty could now come into force as early as December.

When David Cameron promised the British people a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, there were no caveats, no footnotes, no time limits. He offered a "cast-iron guarantee", and to the readers of the Sun, no less: there would be a vote on Lisbon.

And now there won't, so what's changed?

Angela Merkel spoke out on the urgent need for all countries to accept binding obligations on climate change in a rare address before the US Congress, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a rare address before the US Congress on Tuesday to thank Americans for their support during in the past and and promote the need for climate change.

She is the first chancellor of her country to speak before Congress in over 50 years, which US President Barack Obama called "a very appropriate honour".

Merkel thanked Americans for their support as the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, stressing that Germany would never forget the help from the US.

"Ladies and gentlemen, to put it in just one sentence, I know, we Germans know how much we owe to you our American friends. And we shall never, I personally shall never, ever forget this," Merkel said.

AFP - Italy violates parents' right to educate their children along secular lines by displaying crucifixes in classrooms, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday.

The judgment sparked anger in Catholic Italy, with the country's education minister attacking the decision, insisting the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition".

The Strasbourg court found that: "The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities... restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions."

It also restricted the "right of children to believe or not to believe," the seven judges ruling on the case said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to play up France's friendship with Germany, partly in an attempt to distract attention from domestic issues. But officials in Berlin fear that the problems between the two countries are actually increasing.

At least there is one person who feels enthusiastic about Germany's new coalition government of Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats and the business friendly Free Democratic Party. It was very good news that Germany plans to lower taxes, French President Nicolas Sarkozy cooed on Wednesday evening in the inner courtyard of the Elysee Palace in Paris. "It will enable France and Germany to cooperate even more closely," he said. Then the president grabbed the hand of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, holding on as if he would never let it go.

The chancellor was considerably more reserved on that evening in Paris, the evening after her swearing-in ceremony. Research, education and growth, she said, were issues on which Germany and France would cooperate more closely in the future. She quickly extracted her hand from Sarkozy's grip. She said nothing about taxes -- for good reason.

The French delight over the tax policy for which Merkel has reaped bushels of criticism at home is only one of the many oddities in the relationship between the two countries. Paris hopes that Berlin will now give up its goal of budget consolidation. In Berlin, on the other hand, officials insist that this is precisely not what is planned. Once again, there is an odd asymmetry to Franco-German relations, and not just on financial matters.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Leaders of the countries next in line to take on the day-to-day running of the European Union have made it clear that they do not wish to be sidelined by any future EU president.

Gathered in Brussels last week to present a common logo for 18 months of co-operation beginning in January, the prime ministers of Spain, Belgium and Hungary were keen to emphasize the importance of "institutional balance" - an oblique way of saying they do not wish to get elbowed out of the political picture by a powerful new president of the European Council, a post created by the almost-ratified Lisbon Treaty.

Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will lay down the foundations for how the system will work in the future

"The future of Europe does not depend on one person ...the future of Europe depends on institutions," said Belgian leader Herman Van Rompuy.

His Hungarian counterpart Gordon Bajnai said "more time" is needed to "decide the role of the president and his relation to the rotating president." He also said that one of the three prerequisites for the future president should be that the person "is someone who is ready to live with the already existing institutions of Europe."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - UK business minister Peter Mandelson has announced that the UK intends to adopt legislation almost identical to France's controversial three-strikes anti-internet-piracy legislation.

As in France, websurfers found to be downloading content without permission of the copyright owner will first be sent a warning email.

The record industry believes downloaders are free-loaders, but musicians think they are fans

But where across the English Channel, internauts are then sent a letter in the post, in the UK, they will have their bandwidth restricted.

A third offense will then, as with President Nicholas Sarkozy's flagship legislation, result in internet cut-off.

Paris' `Hadopi' law, named for the new government agency charged with hunting down the pirates, is considered draconian by online rights advocates for the powers the agency has, backed by a series of special piracy judges, to cut off internet access and even jail repeat offenders.

Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian prime minister, has emerged as the favourite to become the first president of the European Union, despite being almost unknown on the international stage

Mr Van Rompuy, who enjoys writing Japanese-style poetry, is regarded as the "safe" anti-Tony Blair choice for Germany and the smaller "dwarves gang" of EU countries.

He has discussed taking up the post with his family over Sunday lunch this weekend and appears to be on course to be picked as the least controversial candidate.

It may be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Tony Blair. His name is George Bush. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin, notes Gilad Atzmon.

 
Gordon brown urged European Socialist leaders this week to appoint Tony Blair as the European President. "Get real", he told them, "This is a unique opportunity to get a strong progressive politician to be the president."

Brown is obviously correct, nothing could be more refreshing, innovative `real' and `progressive' than assigning the job to a man who has more blood on his hands than any other person in Europe. It may also be right to argue that there is just one living person on this planet with more blood on his hands than Blair. That man dwells in Texas, his name is George and actually unlike our Bonaparte figure, he keeps relatively quiet. Unlike George, our Boney is craving for recognition, he cannot live without a crown or an official title. Someone should remind Boney that he already made it into history; he can really take a break. With more than one million fatalities in Iraq, he is not far behind Hitler and Stalin.

A major fissure opens up in Labour's support for the Afghan war with a call from the former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells for the phased withdrawal of British troops from Helmand.

Howells, who is now Gordon Brown's intelligence and security watchdog, said the billions of pounds saved should be redirected to defending the UK from terrorist attacks by al-Qaida.

Writing in the Guardian, Howells, who had ministerial responsibility for Afghanistan until 2008, said: "It would be better to bring home the great majority of our fighting men and women and concentrate, instead, on using the money saved to secure our own borders, gather intelligence on terrorist activities inside Britain."

Controversially, he accepts that such an approach would result in "more intrusive surveillance in certain communities" - a tacit acknowledgment that Britain's Muslims would be subject to greater scrutiny by police and intelligence services.

And those are the choices New Labour offers: a foreign war in Afghanistan, or a police state at home.  Can the UK have some better "leaders" please?

Alistair Darling has welcomed the announcements that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds Banking Group are to sell off hundreds of branches.

The chancellor said the sales, which had been demanded by the European Commission, were in the "best interest" of the wider UK banking sector.

RBS will sell 318 branches while Lloyds will dispose of more than 600 branches over the next four years.

The Tories say there is no guarantee the move will get credit flowing again.

Alistair Darling hailed today's multibillion-pound shake-up of the state-owned banks as good value for taxpayers.

In a statement to MPs in the Commons, the chancellor defended the controversial changes to the structure of Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, which could see the taxpayer stump up as much as £39bn and potentially create three new high-street banks.

Under fire from the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, who called Britain's bank bailout a "world record", Darling said: "We are now able to achieve our objectives on financial stability and banking reform at a lower overall cost to the taxpayer."

Nigeria's central bank has ordered the country's banking sector to report suspicious cash transactions from people involved in politics.

The move is part of sweeping reforms made by central bank governor Lamido Sanusi to try and stop corruption.

Mr Sanusi has sacked the heads of five banks top and brought fraud charges against several bank executives.

The regulations are common elsewhere in the world since the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the US.

Churchgoers will have to plug the deficit in the Church of England's pension scheme for clergy, according to an independent consultant.

The scheme put all of its investments into shares, leading to a £360m deficit by the end of last year, research by consultant John Ralfe found.

Most pension schemes mix their investments between shares, bonds and gilts to manage the risk.

A number of UK pension schemes suffered from share price falls in 2008.

MADRID, Nov 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of Spain said on Tuesday that it has approved the takeover of the only Spanish bank to be bailed out during the financial crisis, Caja Castilla La Mancha (CCM). A savings bank from the region of Asturias, Cajastur, will take control of CCM if the general assemblies of both regional banks approve the terms of the deal, the Bank of Spain said in a statement.

General Motors (GM) has cancelled plans to sell a majority stake in its European car business Opel, including its UK brand Vauxhall.

The US giant said in a statement that its board had made the decision because of "an improving business environment for GM over the past few months".

GM had agreed to sell Opel and Vauxhall to Canadian car parts firm Magna.

The Magna deal had the backing of the German government, which had pledged 4.5bn euros ($6.7bn; £4bn) of loans.

GM added that it had also come to its decision because of the importance of Opel and Vauxhall to its global strategy

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters today that he would make significant changes to a proposed government fund to help pay for any large financial firms that would be seized and dismantled to prevent major damage to the economy.

As for the resolution fund, Frank said he would require firms to pay into it ahead of any use, as is now done by banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund that helps insure customer deposits. That way the money would be in place to cover the costs of seizing and dismantling a major financial firm, limiting the outlay of government money. Frank also said he favored "some congressional involvement" if the Treasury Department needed to lend any money to the fund to cover a shortfall before more money could be collected from the industry.

"It will not be an unfettered executive decision," Frank said. He suggested allowing any member of Congress to request a vote to stop a disbursement of taxpayer money into the fund.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) has criticized the legislation for creating what he called a permanent, unlimited version of the $700-billion bailout fund. Though he said Frank was moving in the right direction with the proposed changes, he wants more details. Sherman said there was a major difference between a congressional vote to prevent the disbursement of money and one authorizing it. Under the first option, a bill to prevent Treasury from lending money to the fund could be vetoed by the president, which would require a two-thirds majority of both houses to override.

Requiring Treasury to seek congressional approval for any disbursement would mean that only a simple majority of both Houses would be needed to stop it. He said the committee debate on the bill would be important in structuring that mechanism. "The less support there is for unlimited permanent bailout authority, the better the bill will be," Sherman said.

Under the terms of the plan, announced in September, Ireland will pay €54bn to take over bank debt with a book value of €77bn. The initiative is intended primarily to free the banks of their toxic asset burden and encourage lending to small businesses, according to finance minister Brian Lenihan.

But contrary to initial appearances, banks won't be taking a haircut on the assets so much as they will be  getting something of a hair transplant, as one person familiar with the plan put it.

Consider this:  Nama will issue the banks with bonds and subordinated debt to the value of €54bn to take over both performing and distressed loans, many of which were made to the country's largest property developers and collateralised by what one person described as a "rag bag mix of property,  including fields in the middle of nowhere that don't stand a chance of being developed".

The book value of these loans may be €77bn, but as of  September and according to comments by Lenihan, the market value of the portfolios was closer to €47bn.

So you can look at Nama in either of two ways. On the one hand, the banks involved will be taking a haircut of around 30 per cent on the book value of the loans. On the other, the government is paying the banks a premium of about 13 per cent versus the September value of the loans.

Hamid Karzai vowed to tackle corruption in his government and reach out to his political opponents today, but gave no commitments to specific action in his first speech since being re-appointed as president of Afghanistan.

Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Karzai echoed the commitments that his western backers had pushed him to accept, including appointing a clean government and making progress in peace negotiations with the Taliban.

Former conscripts in Chile have offered to reveal details of murders and other crimes sanctioned under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in a move that could lead to some of the men receiving pensions and immunity from prosecution in return.

The ex-soldiers say they want to end almost four decades of silence and share harrowing secrets about abuses they committed and witnessed. Some want to unburden their conscience, others to obtain immunity from possible prosecution or gain pensions and healthcare.

Hundreds gathered in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Santiago, at the weekend to seek official recognition that they too were victims of the regime.

UK oil company, British Petroleum and the China National Petroleum Corporation have signed Iraq's first major new oil deal since the 2003 US-led invasion.

The contract signed on Tuesday is to develop the country's southern Rumaila oilfield, one of the world's biggest.

The 20-year contract is the first of several deals Iraq expects to sign in the coming weeks and months as it tries to catapult itself to third place from 11th in the league of oil-producing nations.

The Goldstone report on last winter's Gaza war has become something of a fixture in the media since its publication in September.

But for South Africans, it is another investigation carried out by the distinguished judge Richard Goldstone - a commission that exposed the brutality of Apartheid security forces in the early 1990s - that looms large in their minds.

That investigation, which came as South Africa moved towards democracy, gave Goldstone hero status in the country. 

Now a group of South African lawyers are confident that his recent Gaza report has paved the way for a legal case that could see uncomfortable questions about the conflict asked much closer to home.

They want to investigate South African citizens who may have fought for the Israeli army during the war on Gaza in December and January, with a view to prosecuting them on South African soil for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

At least five people have been killed in fighting in Somalia after al-Shabab fighters fired mortars at Mogadishu's main airport as the Somali president arrived.

Witnesses said mortars were fired towards the capital's main airport on Wednesday around the time when Sharif Ahmed was landing after a trip to Yemen.

Police said the president was unharmed, but Ali Musa, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, said five people had been killed and 11 people were wounded in the ensuing battles.

Al-Shabab last week fired mortars at the airport as the president was boarding a plane, sparking gun battles that killed at least 24 people.

Reporting from Washington - Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.

The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments -- which substitute for or supplement medical treatments -- on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against "religious and spiritual healthcare."

It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill -- Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.

Cab drivers in South Korea can continue to have televisions on their dashboards, despite the risk of crashing, a court has ruled.

The ruling comes after a taxi driver challenged a $507 (£311) fine imposed by the local authorities in the capital, Seoul. The city's tortuous congestion led taxi drivers to install new mobile TV systems in an attempt to beat boredom.

Watching TV while driving was a factor in 200 accidents last year, police say. Three people were killed and 351 were injured in those accidents, news agency Agence France Presse reported.

The rise in the cost of train tickets has led to the first £1,000 rail fare, it was revealed today.

The fare - of £1,002 - is for a turn-up-and-go, first-class return from Newquay in Cornwall to the Kyle of Lochalsh in the Scottish Highlands.

Unearthed in a survey of fares by rail expert Barry Doe, the Cornwall to Scotland return trip would cover about 1,700 miles. Tickets can be bought from the CrossCountry train company.

Doe's research also showed that some standard-class, turn-up-and go return fares have risen 100% in price since the mid-1990s.

Giant jellyfish have capsized a 10-tonne fishing boat after its crew tried to haul in a net full of the stinging creatures off the eastern coast of Japan.

A man has been told he can take his employer to tribunal on the grounds he was unfairly dismissed because of his views on climate change.

Tim Nicholson, 42, of Oxford, was made redundant in 2008 by Grainger Plc in Didcot, as head of sustainability.

He said his beliefs had contributed to his dismissal and in March a judge ruled he could use employment equality laws to claim it was unfair.

But the firm appealed against this as it believed his views were political.

In the US state of Virginia the talk is of revolution. In the basement of a restaurant in Richmond we met 100 or so American patriots -ordinary people who claim to be the vanguard of a great new movement, a movement for American liberty.

"Lower taxes, less government, more freedom", is their rallying cry.

The words of Patrick Henry, a son of Virginia and one of the founding fathers of the United States, ricocheted around the room: "Give me liberty, or give me death."

The echo of the American Revolution is deliberate. This movement takes as its manifesto the Declaration of Independence itself. Many supporters say they carry a copy of it with them at all times.

Money paid by rich countries to fight global warming will have to "be scaled up" from the $100bn a year on offer, the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said today.

Finance is the key, said Ban, to successful negotations on a global treaty to fight climate change, due to conclude at UN talks next month in Copenhagen.

Ban also revealed that he will next week meet all the US Senators involved in deliberations over the energy and climate bill. Agreement on that bill is seen as vital to negotiations, as without it the US team in Copenhagen will have little domestic mandate to agree a deal. The announcement of the personal intervention of the secretary general is a clear sign of the importance of the matter.

Boris Johnson came to the rescue of a high profile climate change activist and filmmaker who was being attacked by a group of young girls brandishing an iron bar, it was revealed today.

Franny Armstrong, the director of The Age of Stupid, described the mayor of London as her "knight in a shining bicycle" after he came to her defence as she was walking home in Camden, north London, last night.

She called out for help to a passing cyclist after being surrounded by a group of hoodie-wearing young girls who pushed her against a car, one holding an iron bar.

The cyclist turned out to be none other than Johnson, who has made tackling youth crime a key mayoral priority.

Deforestation left nothing to hinder ancient floodwaters on the desert plain, researchers find.

In the Ica Valley, about 120 miles south of Lima, "the wind has blown away the topsoil," one researcher said, "so that features such as canals that were once cut into the landscape are now standing up above it, preserved in hard calcite."

The Nazca people of Peru -- famous for their huge line drawings on an arid plateau that are fully visible only from the air -- set the stage for their demise by deforesting the plain, allowing a huge El Niño-fueled flood to ravage the Ica Valley about AD 500, researchers have found.

"They died out because they destroyed their natural ecosystem," said archaeologist Alex J. Chepstow-Lusty of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima, coauthor of a paper in the current issue of Latin American Antiquity. "As the population expanded, they put in too many fields and didn't protect the landscape. The El Niño wiped away society."

Chepstow-Lusty, David Beresford-Jones of the University of Cambridge and their colleagues used pollen in the soil to trace the horticultural history of the valley, revealing environmental depredation.

The Ica Valley, about 120 miles south of Lima, is barren today but was once a riverine oasis -- a fertile landscape capable of supporting many people. The key to that fertility was a tree called the huarango, or algarrobo.

A member of the Prosopis family, the huarango is a massive, slow-growing relative of mesquite that can live for more than 1,000 years and has roots as deep as 180 feet. The trees have dense wood ideal for construction and fuel, and they trap water from morning mists that waft in from the Pacific.

The UK government's chief science adviser has told BBC News that he supports the former chief drugs adviser's scientific view on cannabis.

Professor John Beddington, the UK's chief scientist, would not be drawn on whether the Home Secretary was wrong to sack Professor David Nutt.

Prof Nutt was chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).

He was fired after using a lecture to say cannabis was less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.

Renowned French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss has died at the age of 100.

One of the most influential French intellectuals of the 20th Century, he founded the structuralist school of anthropology in the 1950s.

President Barack Obama and Bill Gates are being invited to back a website that promotes social politics.

The web portal, entitled Hope Plus, aims to offer online tools to enable social projects such as building schools and fighting pollution.

Although still being created, the site is billed as "a place where people can meet, congregate and participate..to change the world online".

It aims to launch in December at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference.

Data collected by mapping agency Ordnance Survey is to be used to keep track on vulnerable workers and young children.

Locatorz, the firm behind the mobile-phone location service, will be the first commercial company to get its hands on such data.

Users will have to have a GPS-enabled handset for the service to work.

It can only be activated with the consent of the mobile owner and can locate people to within 10 metres.

It works by using a mobile phone's GSM connection, then sending the GPS signal to Locatorz servers which can in turn plot the information onto an Ordnance Survey map and send it to a viewable, secure internet page.

The Daily Beast has obtained the speeches Sarah Palin planned to deliver on Election Night 2008--win or lose. Read the words the McCain camp didn't want her to say.

One year ago Wednesday, the McCain/Palin ticket suffered a resounding electoral defeat. But for Sarah Palin, it was still only the beginning of her reign as the most talked about Republican in America--a title she can rightfully claim to this day, as her very name continues to elicit emotions ranging from abhorrence to adoration.

Here's some great additional footage from the Ares I-X flight taken from a chase plane, which shows the entire flight, including booster separation and parachute deploy -- and the problems that happened with the parachutes.

The video was taken from a Cessna Skymaster aircraft positioned approx. 10 nautical miles away from the vehicle at an altitude of 12,000 feet. The videographer used a gyro-stabilized high-definition camera system mounted to the outside of the aircraft to capture this spectacular footage which provides extremely valuable engineering data, and imagery of the recovery sequence in rarely-seen detail. This provides NASA with additional critical data from vehicle ascent, booster deceleration and parachute deploy.

ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons has revealed that he chose a very un-rock star method of transport to the band's Wembley concert last week.

Instead of the usual chauffeur-driven car, the Texas rocker bought a ticket for the Tube - which then broke down.

"To the disbelief of many I decided to take the Tube," said Gibbons, who has played with ZZ Top since 1969.

The musician picked up the Marshall 11 award at the Classic Rock Roll of Honour awards in London on Monday.

Raw garlic may not be most people's idea of a tasty snack, but details have emerged of Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan's unlikely fondness for munching on the herb.

Although it's renowned for its many healthy properties as well as being a traditional safeguard against vampires, Mr Lenihan is reported to have used it to stay awake during late-night talks about the Republic's troubled economy.

The revelation emerged in an extract from a book by economist and television personality David McWilliams, who says he met the minister in September 2008 at the height of the banking crisis.

BNP leader Nick Griffin has been refused permission to visit the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria on security grounds.

Mr Griffin said he wanted to visit the site, which sits within his North West European Parliament constituency, because he is pro-nuclear power.

But Sellafield Limited, which operates the site, said it was concerned about security and possible demonstrations.

Mr Griffin said the decision prevented him from doing his job as an MEP.

The BNP leader sits on the European Parliament's environment committee and in that capacity asked to visit Sellafield.

But the nuclear plant refused, claiming it could cause "an unnecessary distraction" and be a safety risk.